Excerpts From The Bloody Long Walk III

Work seems to be interfering with my ability to pace my writing. For the past few days, I’ve been really writing every alternate day. Making up for the lack of words the day before by writing like a drunken madman the next day. Not to say that I haven’t been keeping up with my quota thus far, it’s just that there is a limit of how much I can write on a single day after working. Ideas and inspiration doesn’t come easily when your work often entails long hours processing information.

Still, the fact that I have been able to keep the daily quota is a remarkable feat in itself. More so since this being my first Nanowrimo, I should expect everything. I only expect that I see this to the end regardless of what happens. After all, I’m a competitive bastard with OCD, so losing on your first try isn’t an option I handle very well.

In any case, I’ve completed the first scene of chapter 3, though in retrospect it may very be the second half of the second chapter or a stand alone chapter on its own. Either way, I can fix that later, but for now, excerpts! And again, please do comment or give some feedback. You never know when you might give me a good idea.

Here is the opening scene.

Wisps of smoke began to rise from Trevor’s skin. Emma was scared. She had never seen Trevor in the sun before. She would have thought that it would have been a beautiful thing, to have seen her salvation in the daylight at least once. Instead, it was a nightmare unfolding.

Parts of Trevor’s face began to slowly crack and peel, as if the very moisture underneath his flesh had already evaporated off and all that was left was just crumbling flakes of skin. The bits that fell off blacken and turned into ash right before Emma’s eyes. She panicked and grabbed Trevor’s body, bringing it down to her lap. Unfortunately, Trevor was still hitting the accelerator pretty hard. The truck swirved wildly to the side, almost tipping over before careening into the field by the side of the road. Miraculously, they did not tip over, but they must have collided with something when the truck came to an abrupt and painful stop.

Trevor lay across Emma’s lap. He could “hear” her heartbeat pounding a million beats a minute, just another useful skill vampires had when hunting their prey. In this case though it was cue for him to try and reassure Emma. Trevor started to get up.

“Don’t you dare!” Emma held firm over Trevor’s head and body. “You are are idiot Trevor. An idiot! I don’t care if you’re my vampire master or whatever! You’re still a bloody idiot for pulling off a stunt like that! Why didn’t you just pull over and let me drive?! It wouldn’t have taken us a minute to switch! I told you! Don’t you dare die on me and I mean every word I said!”

“I was only trying to…”

Emma cut in. Her rage seemingly increasing with each choked word she forced out. “Trying to what? Be the hero of this story? A martyr to a cause so that you can stick a thumb to faces of your other stuck up kind? Well I am telling you right now Trevor Emerson, you’re as stuck up as the rest of them. It doesn’t make a difference if you leave me to save yourself or you burn up to save me. It’s all about you and your kind’s damn pride.”

Trevor was speechless, not to mention helpless against the full force of Emma’s ferocity.

“You think you’re better than us because you’re stronger, faster and can do things that no human being can do. But you can’t do everything we can do either. You can’t enjoy a delicious cooked meal ever again. You can’t hold your own child in your arms. And you can’t damn well feel the warmth of the sunlight on your skin and live to tell about it!”

Trevor’s shame and guilt was rising with every verbal blow. While he may have struggled to think of a response, he couldn’t deny whatever Emma said. He knew for the most part that whatever she was true and he hated it, until he felt Emma’s head rest against his own and the slick wetness of her face. She had been crying.

“I told you I’d be lost without you.” Emma whispered. All traces of her rage seemingly vanished with the intensity of her voice. “Please Trevor, if you meant what you said about me meaning that much to you, don’t die for my sake. Live for it. Promise me Trevor, live for me.”

All Trevor could do was to bring his hand up to Emma’s face and whisper one word.

“Yes.”

Here is a tiny prelude to some bit of action if you don’t like it being too emotional.

Trevor needed to buy Emma more time, but he needed to make sure that their position was safe as well. If only he could have a better view of the surrounding. That’s when he turned around, looked at the truck and cursed again for not realising it sooner.

He made his way up to the hood and eventually onto the roof of the truck. In other circumstances, Trevor would have just done the classic Hollywood thing and helped himself to the roof in one jump, but the sunlight was making him feel weak, sick and nauseous. By the time he climbed onto the roof, he felt like he was going to faint, as if being closer to the sun was making things worse. Trevor actually had to kneel down to prevent himself from falling down.

At least he was on the roof and despite his physical handicap, he could see the surrouding area much more clearly. He was worried for leaving Emma down below at the mercy of the zombies, but it wouldn’t do her much good either if he couldn’t see where they were coming from. Trevor counted an additional 6 more zombies coming from all sides tallying the total count to 12 flesh eating monsters. Trevor had to make sure that he picked them off with a single shot so he didn’t waste bullets and attracted other zombies and he really hoped that they could be killed by putting a bullet to their heads like what was written in zombie lores.

The first few zombies were probably 300 metres out when Trevor let loose the first shot. It should be said that this was the first time Trevor was handling a gun like this. That coupled with the the gas mask over his head and the sunlight bearing down on him, Trevor had trouble aiming for a headshot, but what was left of his vampiric agility still compensated enough that he handled the assault rifle with the ease of a well trained marksman. If there was a time to want to be a blood drinking vampire, an attack from a zombie horde would probably be one of those times.